America's Wirehttp://americaswire.org/drupal7
enKey Finding in Kellogg Foundation – Ebony Poll: Parental Involvement Contributes to School Success http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/key-finding-kellogg-foundation-%E2%80%93-ebony-poll-parental-involvement-contributes-school-succes-1
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
<strong>By George White</strong><br /><strong>New America Media and</strong><br /><strong>America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_poll.jpg" style="width: 391px; height: 218px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px; float: right;" />The “lack of parental involvement” is the biggest issue affecting black students’ quality of education.</p>
<p> That is one of major findings in a new national survey of African Americans on factors in their quality of life. The survey, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) and Ebony magazine, polled 1,005 African Americans on their mood and on issues related to income, housing, health care, relationships, race and education.</p>
<p> Responses to education-related questions made up a large part of the summary of survey findings. When asked to identify the biggest issues in education, about a fifth of respondents said lack of parental involvement, making it the most frequently cited concern. Other concerns included “overcrowded classrooms” (17 percent), “funding differences among school districts” (17 percent), “quality of teachers” (16 percent), and “students with behavioral issues or special needs” (10 percent).</p>
<p> Of those respondents with school-age children or grandchildren, only 37 percent said the nation was “making progress” in efforts to provide “a quality education.” About a third said the country is “losing ground” in education and 28 percent said that there has been no appreciable change in educational quality.</p>
<p> Conducted in February, the survey results were released after the launch of two new Obama Administration initiatives on behalf of young people of color. In January, Pres. Obama appointed leaders in education, philanthropy and law to serve on a commission for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. The president is also seeking support from foundations and businesses for “My Brother’s Keeper,” a campaign he announced on February 27 to improve the education and life prospects of young Latino and African-American males.</p>
<p> WKKF is one of 10 major foundations that have agreed to work with the White House to support the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. However, education has been a priority for WKKF throughout its 83-year history, said Carla Thompson, vice-president of program strategy at the foundation.</p>
<p> Referring to the survey results that cite “lack of parental involvement” as the biggest education issue, Thompson said “that doesn’t surprise me [because] everyone has a stake in education and a vested interest in education.”</p>
<p> Thompson said African-American focus groups told WKKF last year that education ranked second only to job security as the most important issue to blacks overall. In response, the foundation in August made a request for grant proposals for “innovative” initiatives to engage families in education.</p>
<p> “We received more than 1,200 applications, which broke all Kellogg [application] records,” said Thompson. “Family involvement is a foundational element of quality education.”</p>
<p> WKKF had planned to provide $5 million for family engagement programs over a three-year period. However, responding to the wave of applications, the foundation has decided to provide $5 million during the first year of funding. Thompson said WKKF will announce the amount it will invest in the second and third years when it identifies the grant winners of first round of funding in mid-April.</p>
<p> WKKF is already funding some parental engagement initiatives – among them, programs managed by Parents for Public Schools of Jackson (Mississippi) and the Orleans Public Education Network in New Orleans (OPEN).</p>
<p> OPEN Executive Director Deirdre Johnson Burel said more parental involvement is needed but cited “institutional school problems” as a more important factor in the education of black students. She said there is a need for more professional development training for teachers and that black students are not getting the best instruction because teachers at schools in low-income communities generally have less experience.</p>
<p> Burel said parental involvement is becoming more important as school districts in 44 states begin to adopt the more rigorous Common Core education standards.</p>
<p> “We need to help parents understand this shift,” she said. “We need higher education standards, but we also need the resources to meet those standards.”</p>
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<strong><u>About America’s Wire</u></strong></p>
<p>
<em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/"><em>www.americaswire.org</em></a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com"><em>mike@frisbyassociates.com</em></a></p>
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<u>About New America Media</u></p>
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<em>New America Media is the country's first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 3,000 ethnic news organizations. Over 57 million ethnic adults connect to each other, to home countries and to America through 3000+ ethnic media outlets, the fastest growing sector of American journalism. Founded by the non-profit Pacific News Service in 1996, NAM is headquartered in California with offices in </em><a href="http://newamericamedia.org/contact.php"><em>New York</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://newamericamedia.org/contact.php"><em>Washington, D.C</em><em>.</em></a><em> and partnerships with journalism schools to grow local associations of ethnic media.</em></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Tue, 08 Apr 2014 17:51:48 +0000admin191 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/key-finding-kellogg-foundation-%E2%80%93-ebony-poll-parental-involvement-contributes-school-succes-1#commentsBlack Girls and Women Find Healing Through Growing GirlTrek Movementhttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/black-girls-and-women-find-healing-through-growing-girltrek-movement
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
<strong>By A.K. Collier<br />
America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_GirlTrek.jpg" style="width: 391px; height: 326px; float: right; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;" />Although it was still winter in much of the country, 20,000 Black women and girls took to the streets, the parks and their neighborhoods to walk as a part of GirlTrek, a national movement that inspires good health through walking. </p>
<p>
GirlTrekkers sign a pledge to walk five days a week, but on the second weekend in March the festivities were linked to the March 10<sup>th</sup> birthday of freedom fighter and former slave, Harriet Tubman. The participants embrace a lofty goal of logging in 100 minutes of walking. But the founders of GirlTrek also see a deeper mission: helping Black girls and women reclaim their power, lives and neighborhoods.</p>
<p>
“Harriet Tubman weekend was important, but the commitment comes day after day, week after week. We can change lives,” says Vanessa Garrison, a co-founder of the organization. “We like to say if Harriet Tubman can walk thousands of slaves to freedom, we can walk to health and healing. We know that this walking movement has caught on because the healing has been inspirational and contagious.” </p>
<p>
Based in Washington, DC, the two-year-old organization was founded by Garrison and Tanya Morgan Dixon. In fact, GirlTrek started with a routine telephone call. The two women discussed the health challenges facing their families and communities. The conversation ranged from the lack of healthy food options in poor neighborhoods to the influence of hip hop videos on the psyche of teenage girls. </p>
<p>
Then, the conversation took an unusual turn. “What would Harriet Tubman do?” they asked. The women considered starting a t-shirt company; but after a long and colorful conversation, they launched GirlTrek. They wanted to dedicate their lives to addressing the root causes of inactivity in their communities. </p>
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Since 2011, the founders have represented GirlTrek and its mission as keynote speakers at national conferences and universities. GirlTrek's innovation has been cited in peer-reviewed research and featured in national media stories. Garrison and Dixon are in-demand speakers on public health, the obesity-crisis, affordable health solutions, and health barriers - specifically walkability - in urban neighborhoods.</p>
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Dixon earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Southern California and a Master of Education from Seton Hall. She is a relentless street-organizer who is deeply inspired by women like Ella Baker and Septima Clarke. Prior to GirlTrek, Morgan served as director of leadership development for one of the largest charter school networks in the country, Achievement First. She also directed the start-up of six public schools in New York City for St. Hope and the Urban Assembly - two organizations funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. An alumni of Teach for America, she was awarded its inaugural Social Innovation Award in 2012.</p>
<p>
Garrison has a Bachelor of Arts in World Arts and Culture from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a passionate advocate of social justice issues and has focused her work on improving health outcomes and quality of life for black women and girls. Prior to co-founding GirlTrek, Garrison worked as a Program Coordinator for Our Place DC, a nonprofit organization that provides services to currently and formerly incarcerated women. She began her career working in digital media at Turner Broadcasting System. Inc. in Atlanta, GA. Garrison was awarded Teach For America's Social Innovation Award, recognized by the Awesome Foundation as a leader to watch, and named among the top 1% of global social innovators by Echoing Green.</p>
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GirlTrek is a national nonprofit and health organization that inspires and supports Black women and girls to live their healthiest, most fulfilled lives - simply by walking. The organization’s goal is to rally one million people to join by 2018. Through grassroots organizing and award-winning social media campaigns, GirlTrek supports over 15,000 walkers, 300 volunteers and inspires an ever-growing network of 145,000 supporters. Grounded in civil rights history and principles, GirlTrek's health movement relies on inspirational stories, street organizers, authentic partnerships, smart advocacy and a whole lot of hustle. “Every day, we lace up and walk to heal our bodies, inspire our families and reclaim our streets,” the organization says on its website at <a href="http://www.girltrek.org/">www.girltrek.org</a>.</p>
<p>
Dixon was inspired when she found her stride through walking. “I suffered from depression, like many of the women in my family,” Dixon says. “Mine was made worse by pushing myself too hard, and working too hard in my professional life.” It was the depression, she says, that made Dixon isolate herself from friends, community and shy away from intimacy.</p>
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“But it was when I started walking, one step at a time, that I noticed that my world started to slow down. I started to feel transported,” Dixon says. “I felt that I could finally just let my shoulders down and heal.”</p>
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Garrison and Dixon say that as more Black women sign on and start walking they keep hearing inspirational personal stories of healing and health all around the country. “It is true that there are many health disparities that stem from the lack of physical activity among Black women in our communities,” Garrison says. “We do have the highest rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and overweight and obesity. And yes walking a minimum of 30 minutes at least five days a week will help reduce our risks.”</p>
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Dixon adds: “We have many GirlTrekkers who have lost significant amounts of weight and some who report being able to manage their high blood pressure and diabetes better through that commitment to physical exercise.” But, Dixon says that the power of the movement goes beyond the long running story of Black women and girls weight issues. “We are all real women with real needs that are both physical, emotional and social that coming together to walk is helping us meet,” Dixon says.</p>
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The GirlTrekkers have also found synergy and inspiration through linking up on social media. “It’s exciting to learn more about what your peers are doing in Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, all over the place by signing in to Facebook or Twitter,” Garrison says. “You may be walking with your best friend in Los Angeles, but it is powerful to know that at that same time, there are women walking on their jobs, around the block at their churches, and out on the high school tracks—following the lessons set by Harriet Tubman.” </p>
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<em>A.K. Collier</em><em> is a freelance writer. America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/"><em>www.americaswire.org</em></a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com"><em>mike@frisbyassociates.com</em></a><em>.)</em></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:26:00 +0000admin186 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/black-girls-and-women-find-healing-through-growing-girltrek-movement#commentsBlack Girls Disproportionately Confined; Struggle for Dignity in Juvenile Court Schoolshttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/black-girls-disproportionately-confined-struggle-dignity-juvenile-court-schools-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
By Monique W. Morris<br />
America’s Wire Writers Group</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_monique.jpg" style="width: 239px; height: 340px; margin: 2px; float: right;" />Nationwide, African American girls continue to be disproportionately over-represented among girls in confinement and court-ordered residential placements. They are also significantly over-represented among girls who experience exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and other punishment. Studies have shown that Black female disengagement from school partially results from racial injustices as well as their status as girls, forming disciplinary patterns that reflect horrendously misinformed and stereotypical perceptions. </p>
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While academic underperformance and zero tolerance policies are certainly critical components of pathways to confinement, a closer examination reveals that Black girls may also be criminalized for qualities long associated with their survival. For example, being “loud” or “defiant” are infractions potentially leading to subjective reprimanding or exclusionary discipline. But historically, these characteristics can exemplify their responses to the effects of racism, sexism, and classism.</p>
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More than 42,000 youth were educated in “juvenile court schools” located in California correctional and detention facilities in 2012, according to the California Department of Education, and a disproportionate number of them were Black girls. In the state’s 10 largest districts by enrollment, Black females experience school suspension at rates that far surpass their female counterparts of other racial and ethnic groups. Little has been shared about these girls’ educational histories and experiences inside the state’s juvenile correctional facilities or out in the community.</p>
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As a response, I conducted an exploratory, phenomenological, action research study that examined the self-identified, educational experiences of Northern California’s Black girls in confinement using in-depth interviews and descriptive data analysis, among other research activities. The study revealed the following about the educational experiences of confined Black girls in Northern California:</p>
<ul><li>
<strong>They value their education</strong>. Ninety-four percent of the girls in this study reported their education to be either very important or important to them, and nearly as many said their education was equally as important to their parents or guardians, where applicable.<br />
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<strong>They have a history of exclusionary discipline in their district schools</strong>. Eighty-eight percent had a history of suspension, and 65 percent had a history of expulsion from non-juvenile court schools; half cited elementary school as their earliest experience with suspension or expulsion.<br />
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<strong>They experience exclusionary discipline while in detention, too.</strong> Almost all had been removed from a juvenile court school classroom, and one-third of these girls believed it was because they simply asked the teacher a question. Two-thirds reported it was the result of “talking back” — but in each case, the student felt she was responding to an unprompted, negative comment made by the teacher. One participant recalled, “She called me retarded in front of the class…I have a learning disability.”<br />
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<strong>They have missed a lot of school.</strong> The majority reported having recently missed at least 2 weeks of instruction. Among these girls who missed significant portions of school, 36 percent had removed their court-ordered electronic monitoring device and/or were “on the run” and avoiding a warrant for their arrest. Fourteen percent cited prostitution as a major deterrence from attending or participating in school. For 18 percent, mothering a child under the age of 3 years old made attending school difficult. Over half reported they had been expelled from or had “dropped out” of school.<br />
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<strong>They have drug use and/or dependency issues.</strong> Almost all of the girls in this study admitted to a history of smoking marijuana, and 65 percent reported doing so at or just before going to school. Among these girls, 64 percent reported their teachers knew they were high in class – all said there was no action taken by the school.<br />
</li>
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<strong>Many of them lack confidence in their teachers</strong>. Nearly 60 percent reported a lack of confidence in the teaching ability and/or commitment of at least one instructor in their school, and almost half perceived a teacher routinely refusing to answer specific questions about the material they were learning.<br />
</li>
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<strong>They are not engaged.</strong> The majority found the coursework to be too easy and perceived it as below their grade level.<br />
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<strong>Their school credits do not transfer seamlessly between juvenile court schools and district schools.</strong> Most reported a prior experience in the juvenile court school where this study took place. Among these girls, 57 percent believed that the credits they earned while in detention had not transferred appropriately to their district school; the majority were unsure of their credit status.<br />
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<strong>They have goals, but they don’t know how to reach them.</strong> Eighty-eight percent had ideas of their occupational goals, with one-third indicating they would like to be a staff counselor at the juvenile hall. However, 73 percent felt their education was not preparing them for their future.</li>
</ul><p>
This study’s findings show where future research and advocacy efforts might better interrogate the effects of inferior and hyper-punitive nature of these schools.</p>
<p>
Notwithstanding their status as “juvenile delinquents” with significant histories of victimization, these girls tended to find a potentially redemptive quality in education. Though most of the girls in this study did not consider their juvenile court school to be a model learning environment, they generally agreed these schools occupy an important space along a learning continuum that has underserved them. For many of these girls, the figurative lacerations from bureaucratic and ethical failures may leave lasting marks.</p>
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While our ultimate goal is to prevent more girls from being educated in correctional facilities, these schools should be included in the conversation about equity, not only because are they structurally inferior and failing to interrupt student pathways to dropout or push-out, but because there is a moral and legal obligation to improve the quality of education for all youth — even those who are in trouble with the law. We must continue to explore ways for access to quality education in these facilities more equitable, while improving the rigor of the curricula, such that it is trauma-informed and culturally competent. We must also examine ways to facilitate a seamless reentry of these girls back into their district schools and home communities.</p>
<p>
Thurgood Marshall wrote in <em>Procunier v. Martinez</em> (1974), “When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded.”</p>
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It is a long-standing American value that education is a potential tool to restructure social hierarchies and elevate the conditions of historically oppressed peoples. However, current trends in the administration and function of the juvenile court school may exacerbate many pre-existing conflicts between Black girls and teachers and/or the structure of learning environments. The limitations and challenges of these conditions may nullify the opportunities for improved associations between Black girls, school, and academic performance — antithetical to the stated educational goal of the juvenile court school.</p>
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If we can improve the accountability and performance of these schools alongside their district counterparts, we will inevitably move toward a more comprehensive approach to reducing the impact of policies and practices that criminalize and push girls out of school. We will, in essence, begin the process of maintaining <em>her</em> human quality — an essential component of her successful rehabilitation and re-engagement as a productive member of our communities.</p>
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<em>A more detailed version of this article was published in the latest issue of Poverty &amp; Race </em> <a href="http://www.prrac.org/">www.prrac.org</a>. <em>Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. (<a href="mailto:info@moniquewmorris.com">info@moniquewmorris.com</a>) is the co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute (blackwomensjustice.org) and author of </em>Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century. <em>(The New Press, January 2014).</em><em> America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/"><em>www.americaswire.org</em></a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com"><em>mike@frisbyassociates.com</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:44:19 +0000admin185 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/black-girls-disproportionately-confined-struggle-dignity-juvenile-court-schools-0#commentsIntegration Ambassadors: Hartford Area Magnet Schools Provide Integrated Education http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/integration-ambassadors-hartford-area-magnet-schools-provide-integrated-education-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p align="left">
<strong>By Susan Eaton</strong><br /><strong>America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
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<em>“Who's the real ambassador?</em><br /><em>Certain facts we can't ignore</em><br /><em>In my humble way I'm the USA</em><br /><em>Though I represent the government</em><br /><em>The government don't represent some policies I'm for.”</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_hartford.jpg" style="width: 203px; height: 322px; margin: 2px; float: right;" /></p>
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Some six decades ago jazz great Dave Brubeck collaborated with the iconic Louis Armstrong on a musical called <em>The Real Ambassadors</em>. The satire skewered the mid-century government practice that sent black jazz musicians as emissaries to other nations amid rampant racial discrimination in the United States. Though it starred Armstrong himself, <em>The Real Ambassadors</em>, performed only twice, has been largely overlooked and critics agree it was probably too far ahead of its time.</p>
<p align="left">
But in a crowded, high-ceilinged room in Hartford, Connecticut’s public library, recently, the racially diverse group of teenagers who sang the musical’s title song finally found its perfect audience.</p>
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“These young people are incredible,” said an exultant Elizabeth Horton Sheff, the lead plaintiff in a long-running legal effort to reduce school segregation in one of the nation’s most unequal states. Horton Sheff, along with fellow members of a grassroots organization called The Sheff Movement, had organized the evening’s “Celebration of Progress” to bring attention to the success of the schools and programs created here in response to the 1996 court ruling that required the state to remedy school segregation throughout the region.</p>
<p align="left">
The student performers offered a stunning example of that success. The singing group, calling themselves The Real Ambassadors, attend the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. GHAA is one of about three dozen magnet schools that attract a diverse student body by enrolling students from Hartford and the more than two dozen cities and towns that surround it.</p>
<p align="left">
Two and a half decades ago, in 1989, Elizabeth Horton Sheff, then a single mother of two, signed on as lead plaintiff in the <em>Sheff v. O’Neill</em> case, which argued that the racial and class segregation in the region’s schools denied students the equal opportunity granted in the state Constitution. It has been 17 years since the state’s highest court, in 1996, decided in favor of the plaintiffs.</p>
<p align="left">
It’s unlikely that the mix of racially diverse schools would have come into being without the lawsuit that bears Elizabeth Horton Sheff’s name. But a growing community of parents, students, alumni and educators is also working to keep the vision of the case alive. The power of this broad constituency has yet to be fully tapped, but a decade-old network, the Sheff Movement coalition, has worked to bring a diverse group of supporters together around a common aspiration of “quality, integrated education.” Led by Horton Sheff and former City Councilman Jim Boucher, the coalition organizes, provides public information, conducts research and advocates publicly for the schools and programs.</p>
<p align="left">
In 2012, the region’s magnets enrolled more than 13,000 students. They are extremely popular among urban and suburban families. Studies show that among Hartford families, only 72 percent of the demand for the schools is being met. Each regional magnet school has a particular curricular theme or employs a specialized teaching method. Transportation is free.</p>
<p align="left">
In order to retain their status as magnets, which qualify them for additional state funding,at least 25 percent of the students at each schools must be white and about half the students must be from the suburbs. School officials have used “affirmative marketing” to reach this goal, meaning simply that they recruit students and advertise offerings in communities whose demographics would help them reach the diversity goal. No students are selected on the basis of their race or ethnicity. None of the schools impose admission requirements, such as tests or interviews.</p>
<p align="left">
Another program, Open Choice, enables about 1,700 students to attend school outside the communities in which they live. A controlled 2009 study showed that magnet school students from urban communities tended to academically outperform their peers who had applied for magnets but were not admitted. More recent data shows magnet high schools do a much better job graduating students who live in poverty than regular high schools.</p>
<p align="left">
Sheff Movement members have been meeting at least once a month, for 10 years, usually gathering at an interdistrict magnet, the Capital Preparatory Academy, near Hartford’s downtown. Members meet in the school’s library, which in 2012 was officially named the Sheff Center, in Elizabeth Horton Sheff’s honor. They organize public forums, testify at legislative hearings, and hold meetings with legislators and with school boards and PTOs in the suburbs. Increasingly, members speak to national audiences of education scholars and policy experts. They sit behind tables at local magnet school fairs, where they inform parents of choices and procedures for applying. The Sheff Movement also publishes newsletters that announce school application deadlines, advertise magnet school fairs, and bring readers into the daily life of the region’s diverse schools.</p>
<p align="left">
“I think we have a great story to tell,” said Sheff Movement member Robert Cotto, a former interdistrict magnet school teacher and a member of Hartford’s Board of Education. Cotto, who is 31 years old, remembers moving from Hartford and being one of the only Puerto Rican children in his suburban school.</p>
<p align="left">
“So, I do think I understand,” he said, “the really huge potential of diversity, for increasing opportunity….I also think I understand what a welcoming school should be, what a school that strives toward true equality needs to do in order to realize that potential. And I do feel like I’ve seen that here.”</p>
<p align="left">
In front of the mirrored walls of a dance studio at the Greater Hartford Academy for the Arts, groups of students took turns swaying, jumping and, at times it seems, flying across the hardwood floor. In one dance, with just two students performing, Bobby has clearly committed to memory all the movements in the routine choreographed by fellow senior Rosie. It’s a soft, lyrical piece. But the teachers, Deborah Goffe and Leslie Frye-Maietta, and some of the students agree that something is not working.</p>
<p align="left">
“Bobby? Try and do it without worrying about whether or not you are getting everything right,” Goffe suggests. They do. This time, a new playfulness emerges. Rosie and Bobby seem to be talking to each other. Bobby seems to be having more fun. Rose looks happier.</p>
<p align="left">
“That was so much better,” one student says. Bobby grins. Rosie and Bobby drape their arms around each other’s shoulders. “You guys are a great team,” a student tells them.</p>
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Some Arts Academy students attend school here all day, taking required courses in math and English at the 16-acre complex called the Learning Corridor, where GHAA is located. Other students, such as Rosie, take the required courses at a high school in the community where they live and come each afternoon to the Academy for arts classes. Rosie sees differences between the high school in her town, about 20 minutes northeast, and the Arts Academy.</p>
<p align="left">
“I got my haircut real short. And in my home school people were like, ‘What did you do?’ and ‘Why did you cut your hair?’ and they are. . . . shaking their heads like I shouldn’t have done this. And then I am feeling kind of weird about it and I come here that afternoon and people are yelling out, ‘Yo, I love your hair,’ and ‘Girl, you really rock that hair.’ I know that that is just a story about hair. But it is like that with everything. It is like that with any kind of diversity.”</p>
<p align="left">
Education planners deliberately spread magnet schools throughout the region, in both the city of Hartford and its suburbs. The shiny, modern buildings that make up the Learning Corridor campus materialize just beyond bodegas, storefront churches, and vacant commercial spaces in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood. The Learning Corridor houses four interdistrict magnet schools. Besides the Arts Academy, there is another high school, the Greater Hartford Academy of Math and Science, and the Montessori Magnet School, which enrolls children from ages 3 through 12 years old.</p>
<p align="left">
Also on the campus, the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA) brings together about 600 students in grades 6 through 11, with a 12<sup>th</sup> grade class scheduled to start in 2014. In 2011, HMTCA received the Dr. Ronald P. Simpson Award, which recognizes the top magnet school in the country, from the professional organization Magnet Schools of America.</p>
<p align="left">
Sheff Movement members often hear from educators beyond Connecticut who marvel at Hartford’s schools but worry that, without a costly legal effort, the success here won’t ever be replicated. That concern is valid, Horton Sheff said. But it is not a good reason to stop trying.</p>
<p align="left">
“[A lawsuit] is not the only way to create integrated schools….but you know what you need first? You need to have a conversation, Horton Sheff said. “I always keep in mind that segregation was created by people. And that doesn’t make me depressed. It reminds me that it can be undone by people.”</p>
<p align="left">
<em>(Susan Eaton is co-director of One Nation Indivisible, a project that writes about people and organizations who helping create inclusive, racially and culturally diverse schools, communities and social institutions. To learn more go to Onenationindivisible.org.</em><em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/">www.americaswire.org</a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com">mike@frisbyassociates.com</a><em>. )</em></p>
<p align="left">
</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 06 Nov 2013 16:59:07 +0000admin181 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/integration-ambassadors-hartford-area-magnet-schools-provide-integrated-education-0#commentsInterrupting The School-To-Prison Pipelinehttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/interrupting-school-prison-pipeline-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
<strong>By Judith Browne Dianis</strong><br /><strong>America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_Salecia_Johnson.jpg" style="width: 344px; height: 244px; margin: 2px; float: right;" /></strong></p>
<p>
<strong>ASHEVILLE, N.C.</strong>–Salecia Johnson, age 6, grew frustrated in her Milledgeville, Ga., kindergarten class last year and erupted into a temper tantrum. Unfortunately, it’s something that mothers sometimes must confront with raising young children. But what happened next was not routine, nor should it be happening to Salecia or any other children.</p>
<p>
Creekside Elementary school called the police, who said they found Salecia on the floor of the principal's office screaming and crying. Police said she had knocked over furniture that injured the principal. The African American child was handcuffed, arrested and hauled to the local police station. She was held for more than hour before her parents were notified and charged with simple assault and damage to property, but didn’t have to go to court because she is a juvenile.</p>
<p>
But the ordeal has severely impacted the child. Her mother, Constance Ruff, says Salecia istraumatized, having difficulty adjusting back to school and maynever recover. Salecia, she says, has awoken at night screaming, “They're coming to get me!” Sadly, her case is not an anomaly. </p>
<p>
Across the country, young people are being arrested for behavior that used to be solved through a trip to the principal’s office or the intervention of a counselor. In Florida, a 14-year-old was arrested and charged for throwing a pencil at another student and spent 21 days in jail. In New York, a 12-year-old was arrested for doodling, ‘I love Abby and Faith on her desk.’ In Chicago, 25 children, some as young as 11, were arrested for engaging in a food fight.</p>
<p>
Supporters of zero tolerance policies say being tough on any infraction creates strong incentives to behave. But the reality belies that myth and cries out for the implementation of common sense discipline polices that ensure that students are put on apathway to career or college rather than the destructive criminal justice system.</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.advancementproject.org/">The Advancement Project</a>, a multi-racial civil rights organization based in Washington, DC, tracks the increasing encroachment of law enforcement and the juvenile justice system into American classrooms, particularly impacting students of color. The research has documented racial disparities nationally and in specific school districts. According to a 2005 report by Advancement Project, <a href="http://www.advancementproject.org/resources/entry/education-on-lockdown-the-schoolhouse-to-jailhouse-track"><em>Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track</em></a>, Black and Latino students in Denver were 70 percent more likely to be disciplined (suspended, expelled, or given police tickets) than their white peers. There were no states where Black students were not suspended more often than their white peers.</p>
<p>
The easy answer is that Black and Latino students misbehave more than other students. However, research consistently shows that this is false. Black and Latino students are punished, even arrested, most often for subjective infractions (i.e. “disorderly conduct,” “disobedience,” “disrespect,” etc.), while White students are more likely to be punished for concrete dangerous activities (e.g., carrying a weapon, using drugs). </p>
<p>
During a convening for“<a href="http://www.americahealing.org/">America Healing</a>,” a racial equity initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a panel discussion this spring focused on examples where different sectors of the community have achieved some success interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. </p>
<p>
Jody Owens, director of the <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/">Southern Poverty Law Center’s</a> Mississippi office, which filed a lawsuit against the district, asserted that “we are losing a generation”in Meridian, Miss., because of the way children are needlessly introduced to the criminal justice system. Kids are pushed into police detention directly from the classroom. Students referred to the Police Departmentfor misbehavior are automatically arrested and sent to the juvenile justice system. There, these students are given probation requiring them to serve any school suspensions incarcerated in the juvenile detention center. One student spent 48 days in jail for wearing the wrong color socks. Youth who run afoul of school rules, not criminal law, are routinely handcuffed to a pole outside the school for the entire eight-hour school day.</p>
<p>
Data shows that zero tolerance policies result in higher dropoutrates, lower academic achievement and young people being pushed into the criminal justice system – hence the name school to prison pipeline.</p>
<p>
How have practices like these become common?</p>
<p>
After the Columbine tragedy, we saw the emergence of zero tolerance policies extended into the nation’s schools. Proponents argue that safety in schools is the key issue though there is little to no evidence these practices create safer learning environments or change disruptive behavior.</p>
<p>
America Healing panelists cited the importance of empowering community groups to achieve victory over these destructive policies.</p>
<p>
Developing leaders among both adults and children willing to advocate for common sense school discipline; building the capacity of organizations through training and providing community resources; and broadly connecting the movement across the nation can build a movement that works.</p>
<p>
Following this model, parent and youth groups, have successfully fought for change. Denver and Baltimore traded out of school suspensions for minor infractions and adopted a system of positive behavior support, more engaging classrooms, in-school suspensions and restorative justice. Denver reduced the use of police in school discipline. The results are higher academic achievement and graduation rates.</p>
<p>
Jerry Tello, director of the national <a href="http://www.nlffi.org/">Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute</a>, shared how strong culture and families can play a significant role in diminishing the effects of living within these toxic environments. He emphasized how extreme discipline policies harm the spirit of youth and their self-perception. He H</p>
<p>
The discussions at America Healing highlighted the power of combining legal and policy strategies, cultural awareness and community activism to reverse zero tolerance. </p>
<p>
If quality education is to be a critical factor to the long-term success and independence of all children, there must be a myriad of innovative practices and partnerships between schools, families, communities, government and business to align and strengthen conditions that will break the school-to-pipeline.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<em>Judith Browne Dianis is co-director of the Advancement Project. She is a prominent civil rights litigator and experienced racial justice advocate in the areas of voting, education, housing, and immigrants’ rights.</em><em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/"><em>www.americaswire.org</em></a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com"><em>mike@frisbyassociates.com</em></a><em>. )</em></p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:29:24 +0000admin167 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/interrupting-school-prison-pipeline-0#commentsReclaiming the Narrative: A Key Step in Eradicating Racism in Americahttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/reclaiming-narrative-key-step-eradicating-racism-america
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
<strong>COMMENTARY</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>By Dr. Gail C. Christopher</strong><br /><strong>America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="sites/default/files/site_pics_med_gail_christopher.jpg" style="width: 163px; height: 228px; margin: 2px; float: right;" />Just 100 miles from where Trayvon Martin was killed, the slaying of an unarmed black teenager that unleashed intense racial anger and antagonism, there is a new example of the racism and racial insensitivities that continue to punctuate our society.</p>
<p>
With Martin’s death still a bitter memory, aPort Canaveral Police Department firearms instructor did the unthinkable – Sgt. Ron King offered paper targets resembling Martin to fellow officers for shooting practice in the Florida town. King claims the targets were teaching toolsforwhat not to shoot at, but his supervisors deemed his action inappropriate and he was fired last weekend.</p>
<p>
Throughout each day, newspapers, the airwaves and Internet routinely crackle with stories like this one, stories demonstrating thatracism and the centuries-old racial hierarchy still exists. This destructive belief that skin color makes one group of people superior to anotherhas dominated Americanculture, our institutions and our narratives consciously or unconsciously for centuries.</p>
<p>
When Roland Martin says race played a role in his firing from CNN, when racial incidents erupt at a high school in Grand Haven, Mich. or when there are a series of hate messages at Oberlin College, all these events are widely reported in the media. Not much adverse news about racial biasis missed with the 24/7 news cycle, abundant talk radio, social media channels and the ever-expanding blogosphere. </p>
<p>
But do these stories represent the<em> real</em> story about our communities? </p>
<p>
Not long ago, reporting on acts of racism was considered progress: after these media reports, it becomes less likely that incidents can be covered-up. Once hostilities are out in the open, frank and honest discussions can occur and perhaps lead to solutions that address the root causes of racism. </p>
<p>
Yet those committed to positive change and healing the wounds of racism, both past and present, recognize there is also a changing America out there. This is alsoa nation of people with positive stories to tell about our communities, to tell about families of all different races and ethnicities -- the neighbors that we love and respect regardless of the narratives dividing us. Americans <em><u>are</u></em>working together, finding common ground in diverse neighborhoods and bridging their differences to sustain racial harmony in their communities, in their schools and in an array of public and private institutions, including the criminal justice system. But these are the stories that aren’t reported in the media and aren’t reflected enough in narratives regarding race.</p>
<p>
In Michigan, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services is healing divisions between Arab and non-Arab Americans. The center engages communities to document and share personal narratives and collective histories of the national Arab American community’s experience after 9/11. It includes an exhibit, a series of public programs, educator’s workshops and community dialogues.</p>
<p>
In New Orleans, the Ashé Cultural Center is utilizing art and culture to create a safe and healing space for all who come through its doors, especially young people in the community. Its Truth Be Told project includes commissioning and producing original art works that are made available to other groups, gatherings, and events to stimulate thinking and dialogue in the community. The center is expanding interracial participation in their commemorations and producing a series of film screenings, panel discussions, roundtables, and lectures to upgrade knowledge, thinking on race and the impact and influence of racism.</p>
<p>
And in Chicago, the Collateral Damage Project conducts interactive research on gun violence, racial discrimination and gang participation in urban communities. It has resulted in a traveling exhibition, multi-media documentary and the development of a social networking website for youth. Their work explores the lives of 46 youths who lost their lives to gun violence and examines the destructive role that violence, discrimination and residential segregation play in urban communities.</p>
<p>
These stories belong in the narrative and must be shared and leveraged for meaningful change to take place.</p>
<p>
In Asheville, NC from April 22 to 25, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will hold its 2013 America Healing Convening. The theme for this year is <em>Reclaiming the Narrative. </em>We want to raise awareness of the diverse stories that are omitted from our nation’s collective history and examine that impact. More than 500 national and community-level leaders, community-based organizations and civil rights groups will gather to share stories, and create a richer and more reflective narrative of our collective human experiences. We will share stories of successes, challenges and hopes for healing communities and creating better life outcomes, especially for vulnerable children. Our gathering will not only present a pathway to overcome racism and divisiveness, through healing, but showcases how it is happening today in communities across the country.</p>
<p>
The first full day, Tuesday, April 23, will facilitate small group conversations about the stories that demonstrate the effectiveness of our work. The second day is committed to sharing stories of barriers and demonstrated outcomes in law, justice and racial equity, while using a narrative for structural change through interactive plenaries and concurrent sessions. On the final day, we will explore the catalytic power of a reframed narrative, while exploring the neuroscience and psychological power of narratives.</p>
<p>
Reclaiming the narrative is vitally important to our nation’s future. Most of the children born in our country today are children of color; we must eliminate the barriers to their opportunities if America is to flourish in the future.</p>
<p>
Our stories will spur conversations about the legacy of racism in America. The past must be acknowledged and understood before we can heal the wounds caused by racial bias that limits opportunities for families and communities. Any progress towards achieving equitable outcomes for disadvantaged families, people of color and vulnerable children will require a collective commitment to taking actions that will bring urgently needed change.</p>
<p>
It’s the narratives that can create momentum for this societal change, building unwavering confidence that a new a day is indeed possible.</p>
<p>
Working with the Southwest Georgia Project<strong>(SWGAP)</strong><strong>,</strong>high school students in Wilcox County, Ga. are organizing their high school’s first ever integrated prom. In the past, black and white students held separate proms. The integrated prom is not supported by the school system and has drawn opposition from some students. But students, some of whom have been friends for years, are embracing diversity, and an opportunity to bring change to a community stubbornly bound by segregation. </p>
<p>
By telling this story to the public, these students are revealing that racial bias remains rooted in their community, and they are doing something about it. Their story, which has received international attention, is the type of narrative that will inspire others, the type of courageous action that exemplifies the racial healing that is occurring in other communities.</p>
<p>
The Kellogg Foundation, through its America Healing initiative, supports SWGAP, as well as the programs cited in Michigan, New Orleans and Chicago that are promoting healing in communities today, so we can all have a brighter tomorrow. </p>
<p>
<em>Dr. Gail C. Christopher is vice president - program strategy for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and leads the foundation’s America Healing initiative that is committed to addressing structural racism in America on behalf of vulnerable children. </em><em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/">www.americaswire.org</a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com">mike@frisbyassociates.com</a><em>.</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:26:37 +0000admin160 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/reclaiming-narrative-key-step-eradicating-racism-america#commentsNew Voter ID Laws Threaten to Limit Political Clout for Youths and People of Colorhttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/new-voter-id-laws-threaten-limit-political-clout-youths-and-people-color-0
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<strong>By Cathy Cohen and </strong><strong>Jon C. Rogowski</strong><br /><strong>America’s Wire Writers Group</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_voting_line.jpg" style="width: 386px; height: 221px; margin: 2px; float: right;" />CHICAGO </strong>- In a democracy, few rights are as cherished as the right to vote. Yet, in the United States people of color, mainly Latinos, African Americans, Asians and Native Americans, are finding that the more they demonstrate their civic responsibility by voting, the more obstacles that surface designed to weaken the power of their votes. </p>
<p>
Since 2008, when the nation elected its first African American president, there have been numerous efforts in various states to impact ballot access. Legislatures in 19 states have tightened identification requirements for citizens who wish to vote. Many of these new laws require citizens to show a state-issued form of photo ID.</p>
<p>
The New York University School of Law Brennan Center for Justice warned in 2006 that because identification documents are not distributed equally across the population, voter ID laws would significantly affect voter access for people of color — especially Latinos and African Americans — who possessed photo identification at considerably lower rates than whites. </p>
<p>
That prediction became reality last November. A study conducted immediately after the 2012 election surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,500 young people between the ages of 18 and 29 with large oversamples of Blacks and Latinos. Consistent with other national reports, the study sponsored by the Black Youth Project confirmed that a high voter turnout among youth. It also determined that young people of color—especially Black youth—were asked to show identification when voting at considerably higher rates than white youth.</p>
<p>
Even in states with no identification laws, 66 percent of Black youth and 55 percent of Latino youth were asked to show ID, compared with 43 percent of white youth. When nonvoters were asked to indicate the reasons why they did not vote, Black youth were<strong> three</strong> times as likely as white youth (17 percent compared with 5 percent) to say that they did not vote because they lacked the proper identification documents. The study provides compelling evidence that identification laws are applied inconsistently across racial groups, and appear to reduce turnout disproportionately among people of color.</p>
<p>
In the aftermath of the 2012 election, also under attack is the principle of “one person, one vote” established in 1964 when the Supreme Court ruled in <em>Reynolds v. Sims </em>that legislative districts must contain equal numbers of citizens.</p>
<p>
Several states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, recently considered or are considering measures to apportion their electoral votes by congressional districts in place of the winner-take-all system currently in place. Discussions of these proposals have focused, not incorrectly, on the implications for the outcomes of presidential elections. But these proposals are designed explicitly to reduce the electoral influence of citizens living in densely populated areas—precisely those areas more likely to contain larger proportions of people of color—and increase the electoral importance of people living in more sparsely populated areas that take up larger swaths of geography.</p>
<p>
As Sen. Charles Carrico, who introduced the measure in the Virginia State Senate, explained, residents in rural areas “were concerned that it didn’t matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them.” Under these plans, the gerrymandering of congressional districts ensures that Black voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania would have considerably less influence on the apportionment of the state’s electoral votes.</p>
<p>
For instance, the <em>538 </em>blog recently reported that President Obama would have lost twelve of Ohio’s 18 electoral votes had they been apportioned by congressional district. Not only would this have distorted the voices of Ohio’s voters writ large (Obama received more than 100,000 votes more than Romney), but it also would have significantly weakened the influence of Ohio’s Black voters. Nearly percent of 65 percent of Black residents of Ohio are concentrated in the four congressional districts (mostly in the Cleveland area) in which Obama won. Along with weakening the political potency of urban voters generally, proposals to apportion Electoral College votes by congressional district seriously devalue the votes from people of color.</p>
<p>
This tension between individuals and geography is also found in the debate surrounding the current Supreme Court case <em>Shelby County v. Holder.</em> At issue is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to receive federal clearance before changing electoral laws.</p>
<p>
In oral arguments on February 27, attorney Bert Rein argued on behalf of Shelby County, Alabama that this provision is “an inappropriate vehicle to sort out the sovereignty of individual states.” But the sovereignty of <em>states</em> should not be privileged over the equal protections constitutionally granted to individual <em>citizens</em>. Just as states like Ohio and Pennsylvania should not be allowed to weigh the votes of rural residents over votes from urban areas, neither should Alabama be excluded from provisions designed to protect Alabama citizens’ voting rights because Alabama’s sovereignty is judged to be more important than their citizens’ electoral voices.</p>
<p>
Rein is right, though, on at least one point. As he and some of the conservative justices on the Court pointed out, the South is not uniquely racially discriminatory. Schemes to apportion Electoral College votes by congressional district, for instance, have been discussed mostly by states that are not required to receive federal preclearance. But this is not an argument for striking down Section 5. Indeed, any measure that limits ballot access or dilutes some group’s electoral influence in <em>any</em> state ought to be opposed.</p>
<p>
However, if states like South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and others currently subject to Section 5 have their way, significant numbers of people of color are especially likely to feel the negative consequences of new electoral laws. Keeping Section 5 in place will continue to help guard against attempts to limit the influence of people of color on Election Day.</p>
<p align="center">
<em>****</em></p>
<p>
Dr. Cathy Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and <strong>Jon C. Rogowski is</strong> Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University. Dr. Cohen and Prof. Rogowski work with the Black Youth Project. <em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/">www.americaswire.org</a></em><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com">mike@frisbyassociates.com</a></em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:53:30 +0000admin157 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/new-voter-id-laws-threaten-limit-political-clout-youths-and-people-color-0#commentsHUD Voucher Program Fails to Relocate Families From Poor Neighborhoodshttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/hud-voucher-program-fails-relocate-families-poor-neighborhoods-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
By Stefanie DeLuca<br />
America’s Wire Writers Group</p>
<p>
<strong>COMMENTARY</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="sites/default/files/deluca.jpg" style="width: 172px; height: 259px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px; float: right;" />WASHINGTON</strong>-Social scientists and policy makers have long understood the harmful effects that living in high poverty neighborhoods can have on children and adults. Numerous studies underscore the links between neighborhood disadvantage and a host of social problems, including high school dropout, infant mortality, cognitive difficulties, teenage childbearing and exposure to violence.</p>
<p>
These studies show that families living in high poverty neighborhoods face burdens beyond their individual resource constraints in finding jobs, staying safe and raising children. After falling during the decade of the 1990s, both the number of neighborhoods of extreme concentrated poverty and the number of people living in such neighborhoods rose during the past decade, such that 10 percent of poor people now live in extremely high poverty neighborhoods.</p>
<p>
Starting in the 1990s, the federal government significantly reshaped housing policy to address the problem of concentrated poverty. Recognizing that public housing projects were creating the very environments they were designed to eliminate, Congress authorized the HOPE VI program in 1992. This program provided funding to demolish public housing complexes, in many cases replacing them with mixed income communities. While these new communities were intended to reduce poverty concentration by encouraging middle class and poor families to share the same neighborhood, the HOPE VI program did not give residents a right to return to the redeveloped community, and failed to provide one-for-one replacement of public housing units. This contributed to a reduction the nation’s supply of public housing, and also meant that many of the original tenants would not be part of the newly developed community.</p>
<p>
The families who did not or could not return to public housing after HOPE VI joined the millions of poor families already participating in the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. HCV(formerly Section 8) is the largest housing program in the country, subsidizing over 2.2 million households, twice the number served by traditional public housing projects. The voucher program provides tenants with a rent subsidy which they can use to lease any private-market unit renting at or lower than 40-50 percent of the metropolitan area median rent.</p>
<p>
Because vouchers are not attached to specific developments, the HCV program should theoretically work to deconcentrate poverty by allowing poor families to move to more affluent neighborhoods than they would otherwise be able to afford.</p>
<p>
Yet despite this potential, voucher holders usually struggle to move out of poor neighborhoods —on the whole, they are no more likely to relocate to low-poverty communities than poor renters who do not receive federal housing assistance. There are also significant racial differences in the program. Minority voucher users are even less likely than whites to move to better communities, and the proportion of voucher recipients in such neighborhoods shrinks when recipients are mostly black and unassisted households are mostly white. In sum, the HCV program falls short of its full potential to facilitate moves by low-income families out of poor neighborhoods. </p>
<p>
A multi-year study of family dynamics and housing mobility that we conducted in Mobile, Alabamahelps explain why the program doesn’t work as designed.</p>
<p>
While the story of housing and segregation is well known in larger “rust belt” cities in the Northeast and Midwest, less is known about how these processes play out in smaller cities, and cities in the South. Almost a quarter of the HCV households in the Mobile area live in the highest poverty neighborhoods. Between 2009 and 2012, we talked with more than 100 low income AfricanAmerican families across Mobile about the places they had lived in the past, their reasons for moving, and their neighborhood characteristics, children, finances, and family dynamics.</p>
<p>
The difficulties begin before the families even receive their subsidy. Because the supply of vouchers lags far behind the demand, housing authorities often maintain waitlists that are thousands of names long. In many cities, the names on the waitlists are so stale that administrators have abandoned a “first come, first served” policy and instead select families randomly when turnover vouchers become available.</p>
<p>
Once families do receive their voucher, they are limited in the amount of time they have to search for a unit. With such a high demand, housing authorities are under pressure to rescind the voucher if a family can’t find a unit in the allotted time, in order to let the next person on the waitlist use it. </p>
<p>
Mothers responded to this time crunch in a number of ways that reduced their chances of moving out of poor neighborhoods and into higher opportunity areas. Some relied on their social networks to refer them to a landlord—this common practice eased anxiety about running out of search time and being left without housing, but often meant that families took a housing unit in a poor or segregated neighborhood, because a relative in such a neighborhood saw a “for rent” sign down the street, or were themselves renting from the same landlord. </p>
<p>
Another significant factor that limits the geographic scope of the housing search is “the list,” a sheet of available properties and participating landlords given to families by the housing authority. Many people said the list was their primary resource during the housing search, and some believed (incorrectly) that they were not allowed to use their vouchers at places which weren’t on the list. After reviewing the list, we found that there were nearly 200 properties on it, but only nine were in non-segregated neighborhoods in the city, and only seven were in non-poor neighborhoods.</p>
<p>
Clearly, families who use the HCV program face a number of constraints that limit their ability to make a careful, calculated search for housing. Not only do they face difficulties finding affordable housing where landlords will take their voucher in the first place, but with the loud ticking clock on their voucher, they are often forced into desperate and last minute choices about where to live. Landlord referrals, the housing authority’s limited property list, and a general unfamiliarity with better off neighborhoods helped channel families into other poor, segregated neighborhoods. Under these circumstances, it would be misleading to say that many of the families were affirmatively “choosing” their neighborhoods. </p>
<p>
These barriers are reinforced by some aspects of the HCV program’s administration that reduce the capacity and incentive for public housing authorities to implement programs that leverage vouchers to deconcentrate poverty. For example, the way that HUD has traditionally chosen to set maximum “Fair Market Rents” (FMRs), at the 40<sup>th</sup> (or 50<sup>th</sup>) percentile of overall metropolitan rents, tends to place rental units in many higher opportunity communities out of reach.</p>
<p>
While the constraints are daunting, there are policy changes that can directly impact them, some of which are currently under consideration at HUD:</p>
<ul><li>
Give more weight to the poverty deconcentration factor in the tool HUD uses to evaluate the administration ofHCV.</li>
<li>
Streamline the portability process.</li>
<li>
Experiment with smaller area FMR limits, which would set voucher rents by zip code rather than metropolitan area, thus increasing the rent limit in better neighborhoods while decreasing it in high poverty ones.</li>
<li>
Extend the voucher search time, especially for families who are trying to rent the difficult to find units in better neighborhoods.</li>
<li>
Expand special “mobility programs” that have been implemented in several metropolitan areas; these programs provide counseling to low-income, minority families to help them find housing in low poverty or non-segregated neighborhoods and to stay there.</li>
</ul><p>
While the nation’s public housing policy is touted as allowing poor families the freedom and “choice”to move to better neighborhoods, our research shows that is frequently not the case. The reality is that many low-income families are stuck living in high poverty, racially segregated areas.</p>
<p align="center">
###</p>
<p>
<em>(Stefanie DeLuca is Assoc. Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.</em><em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/">www.americaswire.org</a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com">mike@frisbyassociates.com</a><em>. )</em></p>
<p>
</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drupal7/?q=tags/featured" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">featured</a></div></div></div>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:22:46 +0000admin143 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/hud-voucher-program-fails-relocate-families-poor-neighborhoods-0#commentsShell Oil Presses Supreme Court to Deprive Torture Victims of Justicehttp://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/shell-oil-presses-supreme-court-deprive-torture-victims-justice-0
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
<strong><em>Former Somali General Was Held Liable for War Crimes</em></strong></p>
<p>
By Bashe Yousuf<br />
America’s Wire Writers Group</p>
<p>
<strong>COMMENTARY</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_plaintiffs.jpg" style="width: 476px; height: 324px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 2px 4px; float: right; " /></strong></p>
<p>
<strong><strong>WASHINGTON</strong>-Will victims of distant genocides and crimes against humanity be allowed to continue using U. S. courts to seek justice against their persecutors, as well as the individuals and corporations that helped facilitate human rights violations across the globe?</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>In a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Shell Oil is sending a shocking message: victims of mass atrocities should have no standing in our nation’s courts.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>The case, <em>Kiobel v. Shell</em>, concerns a group of Nigerian refugees living in the United States who sued Shell for helping Nigeria’s former dictator torture and kill environmentalists. Rather than simply deny the allegations, Shell is trying to deny the plaintiffs—and all victims of foreign human rights crimes—the right to seek justice in U.S. courts. Our courts, Shell argues, are powerless to hear claims that a foreign government slaughtered its own people in its own territory—even when the defendants who committed or financed these crimes find refuge in this country.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>For victims of human rights abuses, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For decades, U.S. courts have given survivors what repressive regimes back home denied them: a chance to confront their abusers, seek truth, and obtain a measure of justice. I know because I am one of these survivors.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>As a young businessman in Somalia in the early 1980s, I was tortured by the former SiadBarre regime. Accused of treason for the “crime” of volunteering in a civil society group, I was bound by ropes in excruciating positions, suffocated with water, and electrocuted. I spent most of the next seven years in solitary confinement in a small, windowless cell.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>After my release, the United States gave me asylum. But it also gave me something that victims could not dream of in Somalia—the chance to bring my persecutor to justice. In America, I discovered that General Mohamad Ali Samantar—the former Somali Minister of Defense who exercised command and control over my torturers—was living in comfortable retirement in a Virginia suburb. </strong></p>
<p>
<strong>My lawyers at the Center for Justice and Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights organization, helped me and other survivors bring a case against Samantar. In 2010, we fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court—and won. Samantar was denied immunity for his crimes, and in August 2012, a trial judge ordered him to pay $21 million to his victims. The judgment sent a clear message: there will be no safe haven in the United States for human rights abusers.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>Our case against General Samantar is the latest in a long line of precedents brought under a 200 year-old law—the Alien Tort Statute—that allows victims to sue in federal court for violations of international law. In 2004, the Supreme Court upheld that law. But now Shell is asking the Court to ignore that precedent and roll back decades of progress in human rights.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/site_pics_med_bashe.jpg" style="width: 179px; height: 211px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 2px 4px; float: left; " />I fear that our case—which has become a beacon for ending impunity in modern-day Somaliland—will be the last of its kind. Shell claims that human rights do not belong in U.S. courts. If the Court accepts Shell’s arguments, U.S. law will no longer give survivors of foreign genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity the right to hold perpetrators accountable.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>But Shell is wrong. Mass atrocities are the business of our courts. International human rights violations know no borders. Cases like <em>Samantar</em>or <em>Kiobel</em> are not aboutdistant crimes in far-away lands. They are almost always about American lives. They are about the war criminal next door, seeking to escape responsibility for his past. They are about the torture survivor whose business suit, doctor’s coat, or factory uniform conceals her scars. And they are about the rogue company whose offices in America reap profits from abuses overseas.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong>Shell’s lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to shut the courthouse doors on these cases. I have faith that the Court will hold those doors open. We must not avert our eyes to the human rights abusers living among us and deny victims their day in court.</strong></p>
<p>
<strong><em>BasheYousuf, a torture victim from Somalia, was among plaintiffs who won a $21 million lawsuit against his Somali torturer in Federal Court. </em><em>America’s Wire is a nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Articles can be published free of charge. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.americaswire.org">www.americaswire.org</a> or contact Michael K. Frisby at <a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com">mike@frisbyassociates.com</a>.) </em></strong></p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:11:13 +0000admin133 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/shell-oil-presses-supreme-court-deprive-torture-victims-justice-0#commentsLaw Enforcement Gaps Leave Native Women Vulnerable to Rape and Domestic Violence http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/law-enforcement-gaps-leave-native-women-vulnerable-rape-and-domestic-violence-1
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>
By Kimberly N. Alleyne<br />
America’s Wire</p>
<p>
<strong><img alt="" src="sites/default/files/site_pics_med_native_americans.jpg" style="width: 463px; height: 272px; margin: 2px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; float: right; " />WASHINGTON</strong>—A gap in law enforcement on Native American lands creates an environment in which Native women suffer a higher rate of violence than any demographic in the United States, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Census Bureau and advocacy organizations.</p>
<p>
The Justice Department has found that Native women are victims of violent crime at 3-1/2 times the national average, with advocates saying the actual figure is much higher because many victims mistrust authorities and don’t report such crime.The department says 70 percent of sexual assaults are never reported.</p>
<p>
Jurisdictional conflicts make it difficult to arrest and prosecute non-Natives for crimes committed against Natives.Complications with investigations and court proceedings involving sexual assault and domestic violence cases further decrease likelihood of prosecutions.</p>
<p>
“It’s almost like non-Native people have a license to brutalize Native women,” says Tina Olson,co-director of Mending the Sacred Hoop in Duluth, Minn.According to its website, the group works “to end violence against Native women and children while restoring the safety, sovereignty, and sacredness of Native women.”</p>
<p>
The Census Bureau has determined that 39 percent of Native women are victims of domestic violence at least once. Moreover, it says, victims often use the term “domestic violence” to describe more vicious attacks.</p>
<p>
“We tried to better assess the types of violence that Native women experience, and we learned that how they define domestic violence is so much worse than how we viewed it,” says Sarah El-Fakahany, a sexual assault advocate at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center in Minneapolis. “They viewed it as, ‘I almost died,’ or ‘I was kidnapped, raped and held in a basement for three days’ or ‘I was dragged by a car, but it wasn’t that bad’.”</p>
<p>
Data from a survey by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Denver show that 1.5 million women are physically or sexually assaulted annually andthat Native women suffer domestic violence at a disproportionately higher rate. A Justice Department report says one of every three Native women will be raped in her lifetime.</p>
<p>
“The types of violence we see against Native women at this agency are numerous,”El-Fakahanysays. “Essentially, if there is a form of violence out there, we’ve seen it. I’ve worked as a sexual assault advocate for five years and in the Native community for about two years, and I’ve never seen the level of violence as I’ve seen here.”</p>
<p>
Authorities’ inability to prosecute these crimes endangers Native women further. Domestic violence crimes perpetrated on reservations or pueblos are largely not reported or not prosecuted because of loopholes in jurisdictional authority.</p>
<p>
Arrests occur in only 13 percent of sexual assaults reported by Native women, compared with 35 percent for blacks and 32 percent for whites, according to the Justice Department.</p>
<p>
Much of the law enforcement paralysis is caused by laws that prevent tribal authorities from arresting non-Natives for violent crimes in most states, while state authorities can’t arrest tribal members. Public Law 83-280, a federal statute enacted in 1953, transferred authority over crimes involving Natives on Native territory from the federal government to only six states — Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>
“The law can be tricky,” El-Fakahany says. “In Minnesota, tribal police can’t go after non-Natives, but tribal and state law enforcement can go after Natives. Basically, there are non-Native perpetrators who don’t have to be held accountable for their actions, but Natives do.”</p>
<p>
In all other states, federal and tribal governments maintain concurrent jurisdiction for major crimes committed in Indian Country. Tribal governments have jurisdiction over all crimes that are committed in Indian Countryand involve a Native offender and Native victim. States retain jurisdiction for non-Native crimes committed in Indian Countrybut only those in which neither offender nor victim is a Native.</p>
<p>
El-Fakahany’s experiences at the resource center underscore the extent of challenge for law enforcement. “Crimes against Native women are rarely prosecuted,” she says. “We see a spike in attacks during hunting and fishing season,” adding that non-Native men “can go onto the reservations and then go back to their homes five hours away. With tribal jurisdiction, tribal police cannot touch you, and it becomes a federal matter.”</p>
<p>
According to the Census Bureau, 77 percent of residents on reservations and other Native lands are non-Natives, and about 56 percent of Native women are married to non-Natives. Still, tribes have no authority to prosecute a non-Native for domestic violence, even if the offender resides on the reservation where the assault occurred or is married to a tribal member.</p>
<p>
Consequently, prosecution for domestic violence crimes committed in Indian Country is rare. The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction but oftenhas neither resources nor the desire to pursue misdemeanor domestic cases.</p>
<p>
According to government data, U.S. attorneys decline about 67 percent of sexual assault cases referred from Indian Country. Enforcement gaps created by PL 83-280 and indifferent attitudes help to perpetuate cyclical violence against Native women.</p>
<p>
Olson says assault cases often are not even investigated. “One woman told me, ‘I would have validated my rape if someone had called or followed up’,” she says.</p>
<p>
Others blame PL 83-280. “The obstacles presented by Public Law 280 to address sexual assault relate to data collection, training or awareness, lack of resources targeted at tribal communities, lack of well-funded tribal police departments, animosity toward tribal communities and lack of reporting from tribal community members,” the Tribal Law and Policy Institute in West Hollywood, Calif., reported in December 2007.</p>
<p>
Essentially, the system allows non-Natives who commit domestic violence crimes to act without fear of penalty.Statistics show that non-Natives commit 88 percent of violent crimes against Native women.</p>
<p>
“It’s like they’ve [Native women] become this mythical creature, and when you mystify something, you tend to destroy it,” El-Fakahanysays. “There is an ill-conceived idea that they are not real people. If you don’t believe in something, it is really easy to destroy it.”</p>
<p>
Tribal authority is further limited because the federal Tribal Law and Order Act, signed in July 2010, limits the maximum sentence a tribal offender can receive for a single crime to three years.</p>
<p>
Nearly all of 109 tribes responding to a survey about the sentencing increase said they need more federal money and technical help to provide public defenders, establish or update criminal codes and have sufficiently trained judges as the law requires, the Associated Press reported in May.</p>
<p>
Efforts to address violence against Native women continue.</p>
<p>
Advocates have included language in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to expand its provisions to cover undocumented immigrants, American Indians, gays and college students. The legislation was approved by the Senate, but the Republican-controlled House has opposed the additional language and is blocking reauthorization of the Act. First passed in 1994, the Act provided $1.6 billion to assist in the investigation and prosecution of suspects accused of violent crimes against women. It also included other measures, such as creating the Office on Violence Against Women in the US Department of Justice and allowing civil compensation for victims in cases that were not unprosecuted<strong>. </strong></p>
<p>
The Office on Violence Against Women administers the Tribal Coalitions Program, which provides grants to nonprofit and nongovernmental tribal domestic violence groups that work to prevent violence and sexual assaults against Native women.But root causes behind the disparity in domestic violence against Native women remain complex.</p>
<p>
“Native women are very vulnerable,” Olsonsays. “There is a high rate of sex trafficking, and many women’s children are being taken out of their homes as young children and going into foster care. And we’re not talking about one-time incidents. Many women experience multiple victimizations.”</p>
<p>
Advocates for Native women say causes of increased domestic violence often include breakdownsof the family structure, lack of understanding about sexual violence and widespread alcohol abuse.</p>
<p>
“There are many reasons,” Olson says. “There is a history of violence in generation upon generation. There is addiction, alcohol and designer drugs that can be bought over the counter. There is a smoke shop right near our office, and people line up for two hours to get their drugs, to get a cheap high.”</p>
<p>
Furthermore, relations between Natives and government authorities at state and federal levels have long been tense.</p>
<p>
In 2006, Mending the Sacred Hoop and the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault Inc., in Duluth conducted a safety and accountability audit of the response to reported rapes of Native women. “We found that out of 50 police reports, not one of them was prosecuted,” Olson says.“Law enforcement blames whoever is responsible in prosecution, and prosecution blames whoever is responsible in law enforcement.”</p>
<p>
Enactment of the Tribal Law and Order Actmarked a historic step in ensuring that the federal government is properly equipped to manage challenges unique to Native communities. A primary goal is to help reduce violence against Native women there, and a key component is to provide more training for authorities who handle cases of domestic violence against Native women.</p>
<p>
The Indian Health Care Improvement Act, made permanent in March 2010 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, established standardized practices in health facilities for victims of sexual assault. It helps Native women obtain justice against perpetrators of sexual assault.</p>
<p>
“There is a lot of hope among people” in Indian Country, El-Fakahanysays. “People are revitalizing their languages and getting in touch with their cultures. Before, you could not talk about abuse. It was too painful. We’re seeing progress. There are people who are speaking out and saying, ‘We will not accept violence against women’.</p>
<p>
“There is a strong fighting spirit in the people we serve. It’s not about education or wealth. . . . I’ve met many amazing, talented and brilliant people. Women are saying, ‘I got help, and you can, too.’ ”</p>
<p>
<em>America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.americaswire.org/"><em>www.americaswire.org</em></a><em> or contact Michael K. Frisby at </em><a href="mailto:mike@frisbyassociates.com"><em>mike@frisbyassociates.com</em></a><em>. </em></p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:39:33 +0000admin129 at http://americaswire.org/drupal7http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/law-enforcement-gaps-leave-native-women-vulnerable-rape-and-domestic-violence-1#comments